vengeance

interlude

Interlude 

Lunn arrived by ship in Lontha , the key trading city of the Elf Lands. Lunn was lost at first amongst the large white towers , busy markets and cramped streets. There was where he learned , despite his humble life in the Celt Lands , Ul-ion was rich in his homeland. A former general , Ul-ion was rich in gold stored in banks across Lontha. With those funds Ul-ion bought a town house with grounds and stables and hired a cook and cleaners. For a year they trained alone practicing jousting , archery with both longbow and crossbow and spared with training swords. Ul-ion won every time. One day after Ul-ion decided Lunn had become proficient with a crossbow he brought Lunn to buy a better model at a Dwarven blacksmiths and that’s where Lunn met Xander, an orphan boy with sallow skin who the Dwarves raised as their own.

   Xander was of an age with Lunn although he didn’t know his exact age. He had arrived on a supply ship from somewhere in the Imperial Kingdoms , where though remained a mystery. His adopted father Dorac Stonehammer had been bringing him up as a Dwarf , to worship the dwarf gods of smiting , war , gold , honour and kindness.

He learned to sharpen blades , mend dented armour and fix spearheads to shafts. In the arts of wore Xander learned to fight using hand axe , shield , Dwarven pistol and a mysterious great-axe Dorac had gifted him with for his (guessed) fourteenth birthday. Craving a life of adventure , Xander swore himself to be Lunn’s shield, to travel with him and protect him.

  The two new friends trained together day after day. Went to bed covered in bruises and woke sore in the mornings. They fought with blunted weapons, Lunn with sword , Xander with axe. They practiced jousting as the knights of the |Imperial Kingdoms would , balanced on fences and tried to knock the other off with poles and competed in crossbow shooting contests with each other. They honed their skills like a smith hones a blade and within two years they both were skilled in their chosen fields of war.

  This was fortunate for Lontha was not without dangers. Muggings were common on the streets for those who travelled alone at day, murders were common at night. Cutpurses and cutthroats roamed the dark allies . One day while in Dorac’s yard while trying on new armour , the blacksmiths was overrun by half starved feral men. No one knew who they were , or where they came from but they slaughtered elves dwarfs and whoever else they found in they yard. Three apprentice smiths and two patrons were slain before Lunn , Xander , Ul-ion and Dorac. It was the first time that Lunn tested a flail in battle and the first and only time the runes of Xander’s great axe shone with blinding white light,

   After getting fine new arms and armour Lunn , Xander and Ul-ion turned to mercenary work across the east coast of The Elf Lands. Ul-ion insisted on no robbery , murder or dishonest work. They worked cheaply , Ul-ion’s riches meant they would never go hungry but the experience of mercenary work was invaluable to his trainees. They sailed , walked and rode from Lontha to the Great Forest to the cove of skulls. They fought Elven corsairs , orc tribes , monsters of every shape and size from minotaur’s to sea serpents and everything. They even cleared an ancestral vault of goblins for an Elven noble and claimed one piece of the loot as a reward. Xander chose a small chest of gold , growing up a dwarf gave him a lust for it.. Ul-ion chose an ancient Elven war crown. It was gilded gold had cheek and nose guards and a central spike a foot tall , a dozen small rubies were embedded up the length of the spike. Lunn had no need of gold or crowns instead he chose a double sided Elven short sword with a gilded silver hilt and a sapphire in the pommel. 

   With every day that passed Lunn became more anxious to return. Nightmares plagued his nights and he fell into the habit of waking during the night and sitting alone in the dark afraid to sleep. Then one day without warning Ul-ion paid for a ship to bring them back to Lontha and from there back to Dun Dalga. The voyage was an easy one aboard the Elven galley “Eagle’s Wing” , the captain had owed Ul-ion three debts and the voyage was the second to be repaid. Lunn spent most of the journey below decks retching or above decks retching twice as much over the rails. Any other time was spent talking with his companions or admiring the ship. Lunn knew little of the sea but he knew “Eagle’s Wing” was made for war. On the forecastle and aft castle  was a small catapult , the sides were lined with huge mounted crossbows that fired huge heavy spears as bolts. Lunn’s seasickness cleared when he caught sight of the lights of Dun Dalga , he planned to stay in the port town for one night before departing for Sliabh Slante. Little did he know that two more paths were converging on that inn that would change Lunn’s fate and the fates of all those involved.

  After discovering she was the Mage Celt , the great healer and destroyer , Kyra became the personal apprentice of the Arch mage. She was kept apart from all other apprentices and novices. By morning she learned the healing arts. In these she was thought directly by the Arch mage . He was a master in the healing arts and thought Kyra much and more about them.

   It began simply, she learned the words of the spells, the hand gestures and how to absorb and emit healing magic from the sphere atop her staff. Next she learned to heal small cuts and grazes. She learned faster the average trainee in the arcane arts and quickly was able to stop haemorrhages , mend bones and cure fevers. At first she vomited or fainted (or both) at the sight of blood but after a few years practice she brought that under control though the sight and smell of it made her nauseous more often then not. 

   But healing was not the only area of the arcane arts in which Kyra excelled in.

From an early stage it was clear that she had a gift for a far more deadly branch of magic , war magic. Of all of the branches of the collage , war mages were as varied as their spells. The war mages usually studied one small part of war magic and learned all there was to know about it. Some learned to control fire , sparking flames from their finger tips , bending flames to their will and even coating themselves in a veil of flames. Some learned to control the weather , calling rains to slow a foes advance , cause lightning to strike an enemy or a blizzard to freeze them solid. Others like Kyra learned to control the raw energy of magic itself , shaping it to their desire and hurling it at foes. Mages who learned this could cause sparks of energy to rain down on a target or gather enough energy to vaporize a man or ten. No matter what branch of war magic a mage chose to follow they learned to counter other war spells. If two war mages came face to face on a battlefield a battle could be as long as an hour or as short as a minute before one or the other could not control their foe’s spells and were killed.

   Kyra quickly learned much of energy war magic and began to study the basics of others. She learned to spark wisps of flame on her palm and make them move to where she willed it. She learned to call rain down and vary it between a light shower or a torrential down pour. She could brew up gusts of wind and form them into a vortex strong enough to allow her to hover above the ground and stay out of reach of most weapons. Kyra studied a more advanced branch of energy magic that most novices and apprentices could not. She was able to form huge spheres of energy around herself that no arrow , man or even spells could penetrate, but casting this drained her strength rapidly. Another advanced spell was to push objects (or people) away with the lightest touch sending them hurtling through the air.

   Soon into training his young apprentice the Arch mage realized her talents would be highly sought after by kings and lords and emperors. She could support a cavalry charge by raining down spheres of energy on the foe. Protect a general from arrows the way no shield could and when it was all over she could save the dying or at least ease their passing. The Arch mage then thought it wise for her to learn skill with arms . She learned to use her staff in close combat to parry and slash with the blade on the butt of the staff. While using a staff in her right hand to parry she learned to fight with a dirk or short sword in her left.

  Kyra began to have dreams of a woman’s voice telling her to return to the Celt Lands and sail for Dun Dalga. She repeatedly heard this voice in her sleep and her meditations but she ignored it. The dreams turned to nightmares soon enough however , the sweet voice now shouted at her to return and she always saw Sliabh Slante’s keep aflame. Only then did she tell the Arch Mage about her dreams , without explaining what they meant he chartered a ship for her to return. He ordered the smiths and tailors to craft her new robes , armour and jewellery.  The ship that carried her brought her to the small port town of Dun Dalga where she rented a room in the “Fishwife Inn”. She had decided to wait for spring before setting out for Sliabh Slante.

  

   The mercenary Brandon arrived in the West Celt Lands two years ago, in a desperate attempt to escape who he was and what he had done. He took whatever work he could. He hunted deer in the forests and sold them to butchers, tracked down orcs and bandits for one lord or another , and even was part of a pirate crew that raided an East Celt-Lands fishing town. It was after this when he sailed to the Island Province that he met two more mercenaries , Peabrain and Potbelly. They were thugs and thieves but Brandon had been so long travelling on his own that he returned to the mainland with them. Since then he changed , he became a thief , a killer and a drunkard. For along time he enjoyed it but now sitting in an Inn that he doesn’t even know the name of he begins to want something more , a purpose